Private Censorship


Book Description

Private Censorship is about free speech and how corporations and social groups can interfere with it. J.P. Messina asks and variously answers questions like: what should we think when employees get fired for things they say? When is it appropriate for social media firms to deplatform users, and what does it mean for our democracy that those in charge of such decisions are often wealthy Silicon Valley executives? Do search engines act as massive gatekeepers to information in troubling ways, and how might they be constrained if so? Messina argues that while there is much to worry about when it comes to these exercises of private power, it would be a mistake to simply do away with them, as some have suggested.




Censorship, Inc.


Book Description

Soley shows how as corporate power has grown and come to influence the issues on which ordinary Americans should be able to speak out, so new strategies have developed to restrict free speech on issues in which corporations and property-owners have an interest.




The Freedom to Read


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Lessons in Censorship


Book Description

American public schools often censor controversial student speech that the Constitution protects. Lessons in Censorship brings clarity to a bewildering array of court rulings that define the speech rights of young citizens in the school setting. Catherine J. Ross examines disputes that have erupted in our schools and courts over the civil rights movement, war and peace, rights for LGBTs, abortion, immigration, evangelical proselytizing, and the Confederate flag. She argues that the failure of schools to respect civil liberties betrays their educational mission and threatens democracy. From the 1940s through the Warren years, the Supreme Court celebrated free expression and emphasized the role of schools in cultivating liberty. But the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts courts retreated from that vision, curtailing certain categories of student speech in the name of order and authority. Drawing on hundreds of lower court decisions, Ross shows how some judges either misunderstand the law or decline to rein in censorship that is clearly unconstitutional, and she powerfully demonstrates the continuing vitality of the Supreme Court’s initial affirmation of students’ expressive rights. Placing these battles in their social and historical context, Ross introduces us to the young protesters, journalists, and artists at the center of these stories. Lessons in Censorship highlights the troubling and growing tendency of schools to clamp down on off-campus speech such as texting and sexting and reveals how well-intentioned measures to counter verbal bullying and hate speech may impinge on free speech. Throughout, Ross proposes ways to protect free expression without disrupting education.




Case Against the New Censorship


Book Description

In The Case Against the New Censorship: Protecting Free Speech from Big Tech, Progressives, and Universities​, Alan Dershowitz—New York Times bestselling author and one of America’s most respected legal scholars—analyzes the current regressive war against freedom of speech being waged by well-meaning but dangerous censors and proposes steps that can be taken to defend, reclaim, and strengthen freedom of speech and other basic liberties that are under attack. Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek. He is also a fair-minded and even-handed expert on the Constitution and our civil liberties, and in this book offers his knowledge and insight to help readers understand the war being waged against free speech by the ostensibly well-meaning forces seeking to constrain this basic right. The Case Against the New Censorship is an analysis of every aspect of the current fight against freedom of speech, from the cancellations and deplatformings practiced by so-called progressives, to the powerful, seemingly arbitrary control exerted by Big Tech and social media companies, to the stifling of debate and controversial thinking at public and private universities. It assesses the role of the Trump presidency in energizing this backlash against basic liberties and puts it into a broader historical context as it examines how anti-Trump zealots weaponized, distorted, and weakened constitutional protections in an effort to “get” Trump by any means. In the end, The Case Against the New Censorship represents an icon in American law and politics exploring the current rapidly changing attitudes toward the value of free speech and assessing potential ways to preserve our civil liberties. It is essential reading for anyone interested in or concerned about freedom of speech and the efforts to constrain it, the possible effects this could have on our society, and the significance of both freedom of speech and the battle against it in a greater historical and political context.







Censoring Culture


Book Description

A bestselling art historian and a free speech advocate explore subtle new forms of censorship in the art world and beyond. ""In private, museum people have told me that self-censorship is indeed the order of the day. But it is quite rare for an official to speak about it in public. Self-censorship occurs behind closed doors. There are practically no whistle-blowers.""--Hans Haacke, conceptual artist known for his socially and politically engaged art If your idea of censorship is an anonymous bureaucrat in a government office exercising prudish control over "offensive" art and speech, wake up and smell the conglomeration. Censorship today is just as likely to be the result of a market force or a bandwidth monopoly as a line edit or the covering of a nude sculpture, and the current system of new technologies and economic arrangements has subtle, built-in mechanisms for suppressing free expression as powerful as any known in other centuries. In "Censoring Culture," the nationally known author of the ArtSpeak books and the head of the National Coalition Against Censorship's Arts Program bring together the latest thinking from art historians, cultural theorists, legal scholars, and psychoanalysts, as well as first-person accounts by artists and advocates, to give us a comprehensive understanding of censorship in a new century. Contributors include: - J.M. Coetzee, Judy Blume, and others on self-censorship - Hans Haacke on the marriage of art and money - DeeDee Halleck on the military-media-industrial complex - Marjorie Heins on violence and children - Randall Kennedy on the risks of regulating hate speech - Lawrence Lessig on creativity and copyright inthe electronic age - Judith Levine on shielding children from sex - Diane Ravitch on sensitivity guidelines for national testing - Douglas Thomas on hackers and hacking culture




Encyclopedia Of First Amendment Set


Book Description

In the first work of its kind, this new and exciting two-volume reference comprehensively examines all the freedoms in the First Amendment, including free speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion. Encyclopedia of the First Amendment covers the political, historical, and cultural significance of the First Amendment. It provides exclusive, singular focus on what most people consider the essential elements of the Bill of Rights and the basic liberties that Americans enjoy.




Censored


Book Description

When Henry Vizetelly was imprisoned in 1889 for publishing the novels of Émile Zola in English, the problem was not just Zola’s French candour about sex – it was that Vizetelly’s books were cheap, and ordinary people could read them. Censored exposes the role that power plays in censorship. In twenty-five chapters focusing on a wide range of texts, including the Bible, slave narratives, modernist classics, comic books, and Chicana/o literature, Matthew Fellion and Katherine Inglis chart the forces that have driven censorship in the United Kingdom and the United States for over six hundred years, from fears of civil unrest and corruptible youth to the oppression of various groups – religious and political dissidents, same-sex lovers, the working class, immigrants, women, racialized people, and those who have been incarcerated or enslaved. The authors also consider the weight of speech, and when restraints might be justified. Rich with illustrations that bring to life the personalities and the books that feature in its stories, Censored takes readers behind the scenes into the courtroom battles, legislative debates, public campaigns, and private exchanges that have shaped the course of literature. A vital reminder that the freedom of speech has always been fragile and never enjoyed equally by all, Censored offers lessons from the past to guard against threats to literature in a new political era.




The Art of Veiled Speech


Book Description

Throughout Western history, there have been those who felt compelled to share a dissenting opinion on public matters, while still hoping to avoid the social, political, and even criminal consequences for exercising free speech. In this collection of fourteen original essays, editors Han Baltussen and Peter J. Davis trace the roots of censorship far beyond its supposed origins in early modern history. Beginning with the ancient Greek concept of parrhêsia, and its Roman equivalent libertas, the contributors to The Art of Veiled Speech examine lesser-known texts from historical periods, some famous for setting the benchmark for free speech, such as fifth-century Athens and republican Rome, and others for censorship, such as early imperial and late antique Rome. Medieval attempts to suppress heresy, the Spanish Inquisition, and the writings of Thomas Hobbes during the Reformation are among the examples chosen to illustrate an explicit link of cultural censorship across time, casting new light on a range of issues: Which circumstances and limits on free speech were in play? What did it mean for someone to "speak up" or "speak truth to authority"? Drawing on poetry, history, drama, and moral and political philosophy the volume demonstrates the many ways that writers over the last 2500 years have used wordplay, innuendo, and other forms of veiled speech to conceal their subversive views, anticipating censorship and making efforts to get around it. The Art of Veiled Speech offers new insights into the ingenious methods of self-censorship to express controversial views, revealing that the human voice cannot be easily silenced. Contributors: Pauline Allen, Han Baltussen, Megan Cassidy-Welch, Peter J. Davis, Andrew Hartwig, Gesine Manuwald, Bronwen Neil, Lara O'Sullivan, Jon Parkin, John Penwill, François Soyer, Marcus Wilson, Ioannis Ziogas.